Why Joe Biden Dropped Out

IIt took Joe Biden nearly half a century to rise to the pinnacle of American politics, a rise haunted by tragedy and capped by triumph. The fall, by comparison, was brutally quick.

Just weeks after a disastrous debate spurred a dramatic uprising within his own party, Joseph R. Biden Jr., the 46th President of the United States, gave in on July 21 to Democratic concerns about his slim chances re-election, leaving office. dispute against former president Donald Trump. The dramatic decision turns the 2024 race upside down and sets the stage for a frantic race to Election Day.

“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president,” Biden wrote in a letter published on social media just before 2pm on a Sunday afternoon. “While it was my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interests of my party and the country for me to resign and focus exclusively on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.” In a separate post published minutes later, Biden threw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris’ Democratic nomination.

Since the June 27 debate against Trump deepened questions about the president’s mental acuity and his ability to campaign and govern, dozens of elected party officials have urged Biden, 81, to withdraw. Biden stubbornly defied those calls, chafing at the uprising and determined to move forward. He was 100% in, the advisers insisted – until suddenly he wasn’t.

The historic decision makes Biden the first sitting president to cancel his re-election campaign in more than half a century, when Lyndon Johnson announced in March 1968 he would not accept the Democratic Party nomination amid disapproval of his handling of the Vietnam War. Biden’s departure opens the door for Harris or another younger Democratic leader to run for the top job against Trump, 78, depending on how Democrats decide to replace him. And while Biden’s preference still holds sway among many party loyalists, there is hardly a guarantee that a party willing to defend its leader will follow the President’s suggestions.

see more information: Trump and other leaders react to Biden’s withdrawal

It cannot have been easy for a man who fought most of his life for the power of the presidency to renounce it now, in a diminished state and under difficult conditions. Biden didn’t want to go. Overcoming adversity became a defining characteristic of his identity. He saw growing concerns about his age as another hurdle to overcome.

To understand the President’s deliberations as he considered whether to step aside, it is useful to trace the path that led him to this point. As soon as Biden was elected to the Senate in 1972, he suffered the death of his wife and daughter in a car accident. Fifteen years later, his first run for the White House ended abruptly after he presented a stolen debate argument to a British politician. As the plagiarism scandal snowballed, Biden’s inner circle — many of whom still hold positions in his orbit today — urged him to leave. Even now, Biden regrets listening to his family advisors, who encouraged him not to give up.

The experience influenced Biden’s contempt for both the press and his critics. He sees Washington elitists working against him. Giving in to calls for him to end a storied career would be tantamount to admitting he wasn’t up to the task, and he believed he was. For Biden, it meant reliving 1987 again.

But Biden’s dismissal of Democrats’ doubts as a Beltway phenomenon was inaccurate. Americans have long doubted Biden’s age. One Associated Press-NORC poll last summer found that 77% of adults believed Biden was too old to govern effectively during a second term. The debate with Trump cemented this perception. Democrats were shaken to see Biden stumble, confusing names and numbers, losing his train of thought, failing to deflect Trump’s lies or provide coherent descriptions of his own accomplishments and vision for a second term.

Unable to oust him, many frustrated Democrats remained silent, either too timid to declare that the President could no longer lead the ticket, or unsure whether Harris would fare any better. But in the days and weeks that followed, a growing chorus of Democratic lawmakers and donors sounded the alarm, warning that Biden would likely lose in November, potentially dragging down the party’s candidates across the country and handing the House and Senate to Republicans. .

Biden insisted he would stay in the race and worked overtime to strengthen pillars of support within the party, from union leaders to the Congressional Black Caucus. For a moment, it appeared that Biden had clamped down on dissent. Then his longtime ally Nancy Pelosi gave Biden’s effort a boost. “It is up to the president to decide whether he will run. We are all encouraging him to make this decision because time is running out,” the 84-year-old former House speaker said about his 81-year-old president, speaking as if Biden had not promised to stay in the race. He was a remarkable diptych – an octogenarian determined to cling to power even as his abilities diminished; another who voluntarily surrendered and yet maintained the influence to undermine the campaign of the President of the United States when he became a political liability.

While the party fretted, a series of appearances designed to showcase Biden’s strength did little to dispel doubts. Polls have shown him trailing in swing states. Prominent donors began abandoning him or recalibrating their investments. Discussion of his apparent cognitive decline dominated the news. Stan Greenberg, who was Bill Clinton’s pollster and who has previously touted Biden’s re-election chances, has repeatedly called on the White House to take his current danger more seriously. Other party strategists were equally concerned that the campaign was ignoring a crisis situation both for the President and for the least voted candidates across the country, whose fortunes were tied to his. Reliably Democratic states suddenly trended purple.

Then gunshots were heard at an amusement park in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, and a gunman’s attempt to kill Donald Trump sent shockwaves across the country.

Moments before Trump was shot, Biden entered St. Edmond Catholic Church, near the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk in Delaware, just as Saturday night services were scheduled to begin. Soon, news of the shooting emerged. Biden was rushed out of the building, a black baseball cap over his white hair, to receive the news that his predecessor had been the target of an apparent assassination attempt.

Biden took action and began his return to Washington. He called his national security team and peppered his aides with questions. He soon spoke to Trump and addressed the nation three times the next night. His campaign paused political activities in deference to the sensitivities of the moment, even as aides recognized that his opponent facing a bullet would only intensify the fervor of the MAGA movement and perhaps reinforce Trump’s lead in the race.

Trump’s shooting barely stopped the debate over Biden’s age. Both House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and his Senate counterpart Chuck Schumer told Biden directly that his caucuses had deep concerns about his candidacy. Pelosi also told Biden that his refusal to withdraw put Democrats’ ability to hold the Senate and retake the House at risk.

Then, while campaigning in Nevada, Biden was diagnosed with COVID-19 and retreated to his beach house in Rehoboth to convalesce. Before a tight circle of advisers, he blasted Democratic donors for trying to get him out of the race, angry at the lack of credit given to his accomplishments, furious at the disrespect from supposed allies and old friends. But even his closest allies knew he was largely out of the way and was beginning to think seriously about a way out.

Buoyed by the iconic images of his near-assassination and the show of force in response, Trump emerged from the ascendant of the Republican convention. An Associated Press poll released the same day found that 7 in 10 voters thought Biden should withdraw from the race — including 65% of Democrats. Party leaders were no longer willing to stifle the panic.

Now, Biden’s decision to drop out restarts the race. The Trump campaign, prepared to mock, ridicule and defeat Biden, is struggling to rethink his approach to the electoral map. Democrats will try to capitalize on the fresh start, betting that a new candidate at the top of their ticket will energize the base. But who that might be is an open question.

Even before Biden endorsed his running mate to lead the new Democratic ticket, the easiest path for the party was to replace Harris, who quickly announced she would seek the nomination. Leaving aside the first woman and the first black person to hold the vice presidency would be politically complicated for a party that depends on these constituencies at the polls. Unlike other substitutes, Harris would have no trouble accessing the pass’s war chest. Biden said he would not have chosen Harris for vice president if he didn’t think she would be a strong president.

But party bigwigs are eager to start from scratch. For weeks, some have been crafting and publicizing notional plans for a truncated nominating contest that would culminate at the party convention in Chicago in August. Democrats and America are now in uncharted territory.

With reporting from Eric Cortellessa